Mike Andes on running an understaffed business: when you're booked solid and short-handed on multi-day projects, assign one person to show up every day instead of cancelling. Tell customers the truth about delays, start when promised, and finish slower but reliably.
Mike Andes
March 8, 2023
Not so much fun. Always being an entrepreneur running a big business is so great. No, there's times where it's like, my goodness, it's a process. You're never going to get the business if it's growing. It's never going to get to the point where it's like just this perfectly ram machine. If it keeps growing, you're going to keep having problems. And when it comes to jobs, here's what you should do. I know that you're overwhelmed with work. It's like, oh my goodness, I don't have enough time in the day. I got to cancel this project. And here's what you do. If it's a multi day project, put one person on the job instead of the three that you wanted on the job to get the job done in the next three days, put one person the job. Just have a presence on the job so you don't have to cancel, you don't have to move it off. Just have a presence on the job and be open and honest. The customer, like, hey, we're running, we're way behind because of weather, because of whatever. Just list them off, just be honest. But we're going to make sure we get started on the day we promised you and we're going to have someone on the job every single day and we're going to get it done and it takes a little bit longer, but we're going to get done.
